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oc:5.'"^-~-^Sji) 



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Only Believe 



f LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



^ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 



ONLY BELIEVE 



OR, THE 



HUNGERING SOUL FED, 



BY 



JAMES WILLIAM KIMBALL. 




AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 






The Library 

OF CoNr,kRSS 



WASHINGTON 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by the 
American Tract Society, in the Office of the Librarian of CoWreaa. 
at Washington. 







I. Dimness of Spiritual Sight PAGE 5 

II. Full Assurance 10 

III. The Way to Assurance 17 

IV. Rest in Jesus • 21 

V. Prayer - 27 

VI. Praise 34 

VII. Peace 42 

VIII. Seeing Jesus 49 

IX. Abiding in Christ 53 

X. The Night of Faith - 58 

XI. Service -- 62 

XII. Helps - - 69 

XIII. Comfort of Love - 73 

XIV. Growth - 78 

- XV. Sensible Fervors S-^ 

XVI. Liberty 88 

XVII. Perplexities - 91 

XVIIL Victory --- - 98 



ONLY BELIEVE 



I. 

DIMNEgg OF SPIRITUAL glQHT. 

"And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees walk- 
ing." Mark 8 ; 24. 

" Come, thou Light of all that live ! 
Thy pure, beaming radiance give !" 

LYRA CATH. 

There are in every Christian congregation 
some who cannot rest in mere church-member- 
ship — who cannot content themselves in taking 
what Dr. John Mason Good described as "the 
middle walk of Christianity ;" " endeavoring to 
live up to its duties and doctrines, but living 
below its privileges." They would see Jesus — 
realize his personal friendship, and the " fellow- 



6 ONLY IJKLIKVK. 

ship with the Father and with his Son Jesus 
Christ," which John declared in the beginning 
of his first epistle. But they are fearful and 
doubting. 

May it please God to make the following page> 
comforting and helpful to such. The gospel 
feast is spread royally for all, and whosoever 
will, may partake. And may " the God of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give un- 
to" all who read "the spirit of wisdom and reve- 
lation in the knowledge of him : the eyes of their 
understanding being enlightened ; that they may 
know what is the hope of his calling, and what 
the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the 
saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of 
his power to us-ward who believe." Ephesians 
1:17-19. 

When I had, by the guidance of the Spirit, 
found Him whom my soul loveth, it became my 
overpowering desire to share the blessings of 
His grace with others. I was sure I could, with 
God's help, throw some light upon what had 
once been to me altogether inscrutable. Soon 
an opportunity offered. A dear friend with 



DIMNESS OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT. 7 

whom I was associated in carrying on " neigh- 
borhood meetings," said, "After meeting to- 
night, I want you to converse with M . She 

will talk more freely with you than with me. I 
think she has some serious impressions." 

She was farther on than that. She had long 
ago yielded her heart to Jesus ; her desire to 
know him better and better — to become his 
" friend," John 15:1 5 — was now very great. Her 
heart's cry was like that of old, " Sir, we would 
see Jesus." She had reached my old perplexity. 

I said to her, " You are to love and trust 
Jesus unreservedly. To do that, you must first 
know him. If I wished you to love my mother, 
you would not do it merely because I wished it. 
You could do so only as you perceived her love- 
liness. Were I to sketch for you a vivid picture 
of her, and you believed the sketch to be truth- 
ful, this would seem in .a measure practicable. 
Better still would it be to put into your hands 
some of her letters in which her character is 
disclosed. Jesus has thus provided you the 
means of seeing him with tlie spiritual percep- 
tion. In his very first sermon, in telling you 



8 ONLY ULLIEVE. 

who are blessed, he pictures out himself; for 
what he praises he also lives. When he came 
down from the mount a leper came to him, say- 
ing, 'Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me 
clean.' And Jesus put forth his hand and 
touched him, saying, ' I will ; be thou clean.' 
Like to this was his kindness to the centurion ; 
to the sick of the palsy ; to the Syro-phoenician 
woman ; to the widow of Nain. Is he not able ? 
Is he not lovely? You have noticed his pa- 
tience with his rough, uncultivated disciples ; 
his painstaking with their instruction. Have 
you considered that every kind word spoken to 
them is equally spoken to you ? The words of 
Jesus are living and perpetual. The living 
Christ himself, in each of his recorded words, 
speaks out his very heart to you now. And can 
you do otherwise than love and trust him r 

No: the more she saw him thus, the less 
could she withhold her love. He seemed to her 
no longer the dead Christ of past history, but a 
living, loving, personal F'riend, and she loved 
and trusted him as she had not done before. 

When the blind man was brought to Jesus 



DIMNESS OF SPIRITUAI. SKIIIT. 9 

for healing, and his eyes were touched, Christ 
asked him if he saw aught. The man looked 
up, and said, " I see men as trees walking." A 
fit comparison this with the spiritual perception 
of multitudes who have been doubtless renewed, 
but whose discernment of divine truth is still 
very obscure. They need what the blind man 
needed and received — another touch from the 
healing hand of the great Physician, that they 
may be fully restored and see clearly. . 



ir. 

FULL ASgURANCE. 

"According to your faith be it unto you." Matt. 9 : ?<). 

" If my immortal Saviour lives, 
Then my immortal life is sure ; 
His word a firm foundation gives, 
• Here let me live and rest secure." Steele. 

Ix the heat of my first love I imagined that 
every Christian might and should live in the 
full assurance of faith and abounding joy in the 
Lord. As a rule, I should be most unwilling to 
abandon that high ground now ; but obser\'a- 
tion shows that Christians too often fall far 
short of it. Many shrink from the brusque 
avowal of assurance as it is sometimes made, 
and we cannot but think the doctrine has suf- 
fered in the hands of some who assume to know 
most of it. But there is a blessed truth in it, 
otherwise the apostle would not have spoken of 
the "full assurance of faith," Heb. 10:22, and 



FULL ASSl RAXCE. 1 1 

•* o£ hope," Heh. 6 : 1 1. Xor is it an assorance 
at all d^Kndent upoa oorsehres, but vfaoQy, 
£niiii b^finning to end, on Chiist. Nodung 
cookl be nxxe presomptocNis than to assore 
oorsdves of satvation by anjdun^ we can do ; 
but idben ve gii« op oor own stiu^s^es, and 
cast oorsehTes iuSty <mi Jesos, tben iiadeed are 
ipe safe, and may assore oorsdves of tbefacL 

Is tbis assoiancs tbe oomidetion of tbe diiine 
life in tbe soul, as some SI^]pose ? I tbink not ; 
for if joo, dear reader, are admitted to tbe most 
intimate commonion and fdlowsbiqi witb God 
and tbe Lamb ever enjoyed by tbe bdiev^er, 
yon win not be ''satisfied" until yoa'awakein 
his Kkcnes?/^ TT: :^* ' =i von will continae to ban- 
ger and tiiirs: ir md laa^ after God and 
boGness. A- ~L ■ -.: baize peifect rei :e 
for*Tfe: • - ■ -:Tt; . _ _ - ^-fect peace - h : 5 f 
mind is 7 ^ 7 z be tmsTT 
Thee." 

Yon wisii 10 zt "t ---' - — — f--7-.i57.-^ 

jfvgT Settle it " 

-msc cast oat ary : : .m : _' t : . i 

5oes not o^f ' / - \ ;. r:-tLu 10 ^»eneci 



12 DNLV BELIEVE. 

people, for there are none such. He is a Friend 
of sinners. Take in this idea fully, ay, fully, for 
here is where you have doubtless failed : that 
you are received and loved of the Father, not 
for your own sake, but for Jesus' sake. Then it 
follows that no imperfection of yours can sepa- 
rate you from your Father, nor in the least 
weaken the bond that binds you to him. He 
never received you for your excellences ; you 
need, therefore, never be alienated from him by 
your imperfections. In theory this is as famil- 
iar to you as the alphabet, and yet you have not 
made it your own. Make now a new gift of 
yourself to God, as comprehensive and uncon- 
ditional as you can conceive ; and then believe 
that, without a shadow of doubt, whatever you 
freely give he absolutely receives. 

" How shall I know that I do in fact make this 
absolute gift of myself to him .'" you ask. Dear 
reader, there is one thing you have no right to 
do, and must not do ; you must not doubt your 
own consciousness. To do this is torture, and is 
of no benefit to God or man. It is in fact to 
violate a law of your own mind as made by God 



FULL ASSURANCE. I 3 

for your government. I ask you now, as though 
we were face to face, Do you not at this moment 
wish to give yourself wholly away to God ? I 
hear you answer, " I do." Have you any doubt 
that he wishes to receive you ? " I cannot doubt 
it." Then it only remains for you to believe that 
you are received, and to rejoice in this momen- 
tous and blessed reality. Do not fly back to the 
review and reiteration of your own unworthi- 
ness. That is all true, and you are a great deal 
more unworthy than you ever suspected your- 
self of being ; but our Father has received you 
for CJirist's sake, and for his sake alone. Dare 
you magnify your unworthiness above the Fa- 
ther's love for his only-begotten and well-beloved 
Son 1 Do you not perceive that the less worthy 
you are, the more is God honored in the be- 
stowal of eternal redemption for Christ's sake .•* 
I know how many times you have heard all this 
of old ; but I have a hope that as you read this 
the truth is flashing upon you in a new light, 
and that you are seeing more clearly than ever 
before how sweet and blessed it is to be noth- 
ing, and to find Christ all. I have this hope 



14 o\LV i;LLii:vt:. 

because these convictions are God's gift, a free 
gift, if we will but divest ourselves of the exag- 
gerated estimate of our doing, doing, and attain 
to a worthy estimate of the simple receiving. 
" As many as received him, to them' gave he 
power to become the sons of God." 

We know there are those only too indifferent 
about receiving ; but the message is not to such. 
It is a message to those \\ho fear and tremble 
under the terrible consciousness of so much to 
be done within, and the fear of never overtaking 
it. To such God's message is, " Open your mouth 
wide ;" " Freely receive ;" " I will pour you out 
a blessing that there shall not be room enough 
to receive it." Dear friend, only believe the love 
which he has to you. Many waters cannot 
quench it, neither floods drown it. And as he 
did not find the motive to love in you, so no 
more will aught in you be able to extinguish 
that love, while there remains in you the desire 
to follow God as a dear child. That resolution 
of President Edwards has been of ineffable ser- 
vice to me, to " believe nothing but what is gen- 
erous and noble of God." Never was this more 



I'L'I.L AS.su RAN'CE. I 5 

admirably expressed than in Charlotte Elliot's 
hymn : 

"Just as I am, without one plea, 
But that thy blood was shed for me, 
And that thou bidst me come to thee, 
O Lamb of God, I come !" 

If you have not hitherto been able to say that 
Jesus seemed to you like a " Friend dearly be- 
loved," what then ? Must that fact needs be 
perpetual ? By no means. You cannot make, 
but you can receive that faith which is the gift 
of God. One thing you can do ; you can empty 
your heart for him. You can say, " Lord, as thy 
soul liveth, if I cannot have thee, I will have 
nothing." Believe me, for I have tried it, and I 
know, if you empty your heart for him, he will 
fill it. Say to him, " Whom have I in heaven 
but thee, and there is none upon earth that I 
desire besides thee," and mean it, and you shall 
not long have occasion to say, " Oh, why do his 
chariot-wheels delay .'*" 

"Ah, I have said this already countless times," 
I hear you say. Then, dear reader, it is only 
that you have not believed. In what form do 



1 6 ONLY liKl.IKVK. 

you expect the answer which you crave ? Do 
you expect to see any sights, or to hear any 
sound ? The true answer to your desire can be 
given only to faith. You can beheve in a friend 
you have never seen. Believe just so in God. 
He is interested in you, cares for you, yearns 
over you, loves you, just as your best earthly 
friend does, only a million times more. Believe 
it, and give him love for love. I am no more 
truly writing these words to you than he wrote 
the fourteenth chapter of John to you. Find 
him in that. Look up in his face like a little 
child, and bless him for it. It means you — that 
precious chapter — as certainly as though there 
were never another reader of it. Do not let 
Satan, or your own unbelief, cheat you out of 
the comfort of it. 



III. 

THE WAY TO ASSURANCE. 

" Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief." Mark 9 : 24- 
" Lo, glad I come, and thou, blest Lamb, 
Shalt take me to thee as I am : 
Nothing but sin I thee can give ; 
Nothing but love shall I receive." 

I CANNOT feel quite satisfied, dear inquiring 
friend, to let you alone at this point. Per- 
>iaps, being naturally modest and reticent, you 
have unconsciously nursed the idea, that it 
would be presumptuous in you promptly to be- 
lieve, when you give yourself to Jesus, that he 
actually and warmly receives you. Nay, my 
friend, on the contrary, I shall, with his gra- 
cious aid, convict you of presumption in daring 
to doubt that he so receives you. What would 
you, what could you, have more in the way of 
evidence, than he has already supplied.-* Fix 
your attention simply on what he says. Dis- 

Only Believe. 3 



1 8 ONLY BELIEVE. 

miss all philosophizing about it, and take him at 
his word. He says explicitly this: "God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that luhosocvcr bclieveth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." That means 
yoii. He says: "Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you 
rest." That means ^^;/. Again he says :" The 
Spirit and the Bride say, Come ; and let him 
that heareth say, Come ; and let him that is 
athirst come ; and w/iosoeirr will, let him take 
the water of life freely." That means you, 
most unquestionably. Now I must not speak 
pityingly of your holding back ; nor for a mo- 
ment consent to regard it as " proper modesty." 
For, admitting as quite true all that you can 
allege of your undeserving and ill-deserving, I 
must demand of you, How dare you make that 
a pretext for discrediting the solemn and ear- 
nest — ay, the heart-moving asseveration of your 
Lord, that he will and does receive you } This 
is your particular and preeminent sin — this un- 
belief — which you are to confess to God, implo- 
ring him to conquer what you find too strong for 



THE WAV TO ASSURAXCK. I9 

you. Hate this unbelief in God's love. You do 
not begin to know how sinful and hurtful it is. 
You do not conceive what an indignity it puts 
upon God. You perhaps know some poor, de- 
graded, ignorant persons, whom it is in your 
heart to bless and elevate. You exert yourself 
to the utmost to do them good. Your reward 
is, that your good-will is declined, disbelieved, 
or ignored. You are told by the objects of your 
kindness, that they could not possibly do so pre- 
sumptuous a thing as to believe that you mean 
your kindness for them. They prefer to believe 
that you are good to mankind in general. How 
would you feel under such a repulse.-* Would 
the self-styled modesty of it mend the matter, or 
save your wounded feelings 1 

You have a chronic habit of doubting ; do 
you find anything good in it 1 anything lovely 
or to be desired } Hate it ; spurn it as the vilest 
thing you know, and sing, 

" I will believe, I now believe, 
I can hold out no more ; 
I sink, by dying love compelled. 
And own Thee conqueror." 



20 nNi.v i;i:iji:m:. 

" If thou canst believe, all things are possible 
to him that believeth." Only give and commit 
all that you have, and are, and hope, and wish, 
and fear, to him ; that is all, and receive the 
Holy Ghost. Only offer him sincerely and cor- 
dially the hospitalities of your heart ; prepare 
him room, and he will dwell with you, and will 
do all. 



IV. 

REST IN JESUS. 

" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed 
on thee ; because he trusteth in thee." Isa. 26 : 3. 

" Since all the varying scenes of time 
God's watchful eye surveys, 
Oh, who so wise to choose our lot, 
Or to appoint our ways ?" 

When I was first converted I hardly dared go 
to sleep, lest I should lose ground. But then I 
bethought me, or, more properly, the Lord sug- 
gested, that I should rest in the Lord. So I 
said, " Lord Jesus, I cannot keep myself ; let 
me lay my head upon thy bosom." And he did. 
Then I slept, oh, so sweetly ! I praised him in 
my dreams, and waked with a song of praise on 
my lips and in ni}' heart. 

When I went to my room to pray, I said to 
myself, " Now, if my father were in the adjoin- 



22 ONLY i;i:lii:vi:. 

ing apartment, though I could not see him for 
the partition between us, I could know him to 
be there ; and by raising my voice, I could make 
him hear me. Well, Jesus is here, actually here. 
I cannot see him ; the veil of sense forbids ; but 
I know absolutely that he is here. And I have 
no need to raise my voice to make him hear, for 
he can hear the lowest whisper. I will tell 
him all my heart. Holy Spirit, guide me, that 
I may speak as thou wouldst have me. Make 
intercession within me, I entreat thee, that my 
prayer may be thy prayer." And then I turned 
to my Father and asked him if he would redeem 
his Son's pledge : " If ye shall ask anything in 
my name, I will do it." John 14: 14. 

I never have any confusion about Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost. It is all just as I would have 
it. It makes the position of the believer so 
strong, his argument so irresistible. The Spirit 
originates the prayer ; the blessed Saviour takes 
it up and advocates it ; the Father gladly grants 
what is so acceptably presented. I often tell 
him he cannot say nay to his only-begotten and 
well-beloved Son, who is also my well-beloved 



REST IN JESUS. 23 

Lord. Here, you sec, we rest all our desires 
and all our burdens. 

" I have no will, O blessed Lord, 
For all my cares are thine." 

You may think you could rest, if you could but 
learn to connect God with everything you hear 
and see. Cherish that wish, and he will estab- 
lish the connection for you. "If a man love 
me," said Jesus, " he will keep my words ; and 
my Father will love him, and we will come unto 
him, and make our abode with him." Accustom 
yourself to the recognition of his having actu- 
ally done this for you ; actually come and taken 
up his abode in you. The Holy Ghost, the Com- 
forter, dwells with you and in you. Do not ask 
with Nicodemus, " How can these things be r 
It is true, because Jesus declared it should 
be so. 

Be sure that from the moment of your conver- 
sion, the Holy Ghost charged himself with your 
education. And he makes no mistakes. He 
knows to a day, to an hour, when to put us upon 
this, that, and the other study. You have your 
personal and family or peculiar cares. Take 



24 ONLY BKMFVK. 

each and every one of them from the Lord. Do 
not forget that he makes his abode in you, and 
knows all, and is going to work in you, as you 
have often desired, that which is well pleasing 
in his sight. He then appoints all your daily 
cares and trials. Take a headache from him ; 
take broken china from him ; take a dishonest 
clerk from him ; take rainy Mondays from him ; 
take rainy church-meeting-nights from him. It 
is wonderful how the habit of taking ever)'thing 
from him turns a vexation into a blessing. "All 
things work together for good to them who love 
God/' 

And I have never been more deeply touched 
than in the discovery of our Lord's using my 
faults to teach me lessons of humility, love, trust, 
and sympathy for others. I was culpable for 
my fault of course ; but, so far as I am able to 
judge, nothing in the world could Jiave been so 
useful to me as being left to commit it, and to 
see my Lord employing it to impart his lessons. 
Sometimes it has been an error too contempti- 
bly little to be worth mentioning ; and yet, so 
wonderful is the divine alchemv. that little. 



REST IN JESUS. 2$ 

pitiful, nameless fault, in the hands of the infi- 
nitely wise and infinitely loving One, has been 
of a healing and teaching efficacy never to be 
forgotten. Our God takes us just as we are, to 
make us just what he would have us to be. 
Were this not so, our sufficiency would not be 
of God, 2 Cor. 3:5, and our redemption from 
sin would not be wholly his work. Consider, 
if God were to make no use of our faults for the 
disciplining and development of our souls, how 
large a part of all we have and are, would be, as 
it v/ere, without his province. Now we have 
only to remind ourselves of Jesus' own gracious 
assurance, "I came not to call the righteous, 
but sinners to repentance," to feel sure that his 
foresight and providence, all through the days of 
our impenitence even, were laying the founda- 
tion for the "polished shaft" he means to set 
up in the New Jerusalem. Is it not glorious to 
discern that even sin is so completely under the 
control of our Almighty Friend, that he can not 
only limit its scope, but absolutely overrule it, 
so that we shall be more capable of appreciating 
and commending his love, than if we had never 



26 ONLY BELIEVE. 

sinned ? If this seems inadmissible, I leave it 
for those to settle who can show a better account 
of the matter. 

I fall back upon the unquestionable affirma- 
tion also, that God does, by the discipline of 
trials brought upon us by our sins, qualify us to 
be helpful to others, as we could be qualified in 
no other way, so far as mind of man can see. 
Can you not feel assured that God, in some cases 
which you readily recall, has so overruled your 
wrong-doings, as that by the sin and the disci- 
pline you have been fitted to pity, save and 
build up in the faith, those who have in like 
manner erred ? Suppose you had never sinned, 
been forgiven, and rescued from the sins and 
their consequences — is it apparent how you 
could be touched with the feeling of the infirmi- 
ties of those whom you are commissioned to 
save ? Thus you see that in all things, even in 
those which would seem to hinder, we may rest 
in our abiding, indwelling Lord. 



V. 

PRAYER. 

"Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and 
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made 
known unto God." Phil. 4 : 6. 

" Oh dull of heart ! Enclosed doth lie. 
In each ' Come, Lord,' a ' Here am I.' 
Thy very prayer to thee was given. 
Itself a messenger of heaven." trench. 

" And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, 
that will I do, that the Father may be glorified 
in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my 
name, I will do it." Surely this is an immense 
promise ; and at the first glimpse it seems in- 
credible. But two thoughts come to our relief 
and to our assurance ; namely, first, that which 
is to be done, is to be done by the Father, for 
the glory of his Son, and of himself in his Son ; 
and in this view nothing can be too great. Sec- 
ondly, that the very condition, rightly under- 
stood, utterly precludes the gift of anything but 



28 (JNLV i;i:lii-:ve. 

that which it is best should be given ; namely, 
" Whatsoever ye shall ask i>i iny ?iame'' How 
strange that so many miss the force of this con- 
dition and limitation. 

You wonder if you know anything about real 
prayer. Undoubtedly you do. Yet how large 
the sphere of prayer is ! And how much, even 
to the most advanced, ever remains to be known. 
Be frank with our dear Redeemer, our beloved 
Lord. Tell him everything, and the day is not 
distant when you will cease questioning whether 
you know anything of real prayer. 

"Whatsoever ye ask believing, ye shall re- 
ceive ;" that is, whatever you exercise faith in 
Jesus for, in that you will be accepted ; which 
is, I apprehend, the true intent of that passage. 
And is not this incomparably more and better 
than merely receiving literally the precise thing 
you ask .? I should be sorry to be compelled to 
believe that I could stand only on the literal 
ground ; that I must ask with unerring accuracy 
for just what I needed ; that I must believe that 
I shall receive just that, and nothing more or 
else. I believe I never made a truer prayer than 



PRAYER. 29 

on one occasion, years ago, I poured out my 
soul thus : " O Lord, give me what thou seest 
me to need ! I know not what it is. I am 
sensible, deeply, painfully sensible of need ; but 
what I need I know not ; thou knowest. Take 
me, Lord, just as 1 am, and make me just what 
thou wouldst have me to be, for Christ's dear 
sake !" 

This prayer necessitated faith. By placing 
me in this condition of extreme ignorance, He 
placed me in the condition most favorable to 
faith. I knew neither what to expect nor when 
to expect it. That did not preclude, but rather 
predisposed to affectionate trust and childlike 
confidence in his ordering of events and results. 
You cannot but see that a childlike faith honors 
God more than anything you can do ; and thence 
you derive the strongest possible argument when 
you plead, " Lord, increase my faith." Just con- 
sider the absolute impossibility that the Father 
should refuse anything that will honor Jesus ; 
and consider what is implied in asking in the 
name of Jesus. Why, it is asking in the inter- 
est of Jesus ; the asking of one who is " one 



30 ' 'M.\ liiJ.iLvi:. 

with him ;" and so it becomes in one sense the 
asking of Jesus himself. 

Faith calls for the extremest simplicity, the 
utmost possible naturalness of speech to Jesus. 
Thus, though it is right to have set times for 
prayer and for listening to God, it is by no 
means enough that we have such seasons. Hu- 
man intercourse is rendered delightful by its 
spontaneity ; by the welling up of warm affec- 
tions, whenever the crust of our ordinar}' life is 
penetrated by a friendly word, a kindly tone or 
look, or any other revelation of regard. Our 
beloved Lord is the nearest, dearest, tenderest 
Friend we have ; constant, unwearied, wonder- 
fully considerate, and for ever anticipating our 
possible desires. How natural, then, how emi- 
nently suitable, that we should be breaking out, 
at every turn in the road, with the psalmist of 
old, " I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole 
heart ; I will show forth all thy mar\'ellous works." 
President Edwards says his custom was to talk 
with Jesus, to sing to him in a low^ tone by him- 
self. It is a blessed way to do. The best Chris- 
tians I have ever known have been given to it. 



PRAYER. 31 

This is treating him as real. And he gives in 
return real and most substantial tokens of his 
appreciation and friendship. 

WTien it is ''hard work to speak to him," is it 
not that your desire is to speak in a way not 
compatible with your condition just at that mo- 
ment ? Suppose you cannot employ the language 
of exultation, can you not use that of tender ap- 
peal ? " Lord, save, or I perish." " Dear Lord, 
I am a worm and no man." " Lord, I am thine ; 
poor, weak, sinful as I am, I am thine, and only 
thine. To whom else can I go .'" And when 
you cannot talk at all, call to mind the beautiful 
illustration of the child too ill to speak, but who 
now and then opens his eyes to assure himself 
that the enclosing arms are his mother s ; then 
shuts them, and rests content. 

One thing more. A friend wTote me recentl}; : 
"You are better acquainted ^^dth the Master 
than I am; wont you ask him to keep me from 
growing careless and indifferent again." Have 
you never asked a Christian friend to pray thus 
for you ? But in this how little have you done 
the ^Master justice. Christian frieiids may pray 



32 ONLY BELIEVE. 

for you with all the earnestness of their being ; 
but who prompts them so to pray ? Tlie Master 
Jdinsclf. And yet you want others to stir him 
up to love and care for you. O thou of little 
faith! Do you know what a tender mother's 
love for her infant is.' It is nothing in compar- 
ison with His love for thee. 

Do you ask how, when you pray, you are to 
know that your sins are forgiven } Many years 
ago, our Father, yours and mine, put into my 
hands a little work by Robert Philip, " Commu- 
nion with God," in which is a chapter entitled, 
" The Promises of God to the Prayerful, the Real 
Answers to Prayer." This idea was then new 
to me ; but our Father enabled me to see it. 
You know how it is between you and some dear 
friend. That friend promises to do something 
for you on a certain day, and your faith in that 
person settles the thing in your mind as sure. 
Now our Father has said, "If we confess our 
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our 
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 
Here is an absolute promise. "Ah, but it is 
qualified by my confessing," you say; "and how 



PRAYER. 33 

can I be sure that my confession comes within 
God's meaning ?" I repeat what I said before : 
you must learn to stop at the margin of your 
consciousness. If after careful self-examination 
it appears to you that you are sincerely sorry for 
your sin, you are not at liberty to doubt, that as 
it appears to you, so it really is ; that you are 
really sorry for your sins, and that your confes- 
sion is that which is implied and demanded by 
our Lord. There remains, therefore, only that 
you believe that he does forgive and cleanse 
you. 



Only Believ*. 



VI. 

PRAISE. 

" Every day will I bless thee ; and I will praise thy name 
for ever and ever." Ps. 145 : 2. 

"Sun, moon and stars thy love attest, 
In every golden ray ; 
Love draws the curtains of the night. 
And love brings back the day." 

I HAVE a proposition to make to you ; it is 
this ; that for one week you shall ask no spe- 
cific petitions for yourself, but shall devote your- 
self to thanksgiving for the mercies you have re- 
ceived, and to the renewed consecration of your- 
self and all you have to God. You have been 
praying doubtless a great deal, but you have not 
praised much. I know it as surely as if you had 
said so in words, because a restful happy heart 
is a praising heart ; and a praising heart is a 
happy one. Spend then a week in counting up 
your mercies. 

And in making the new consecration of your- 



PRAISE. 35 

self to God, do n't be content to do it in the 
mass. Take up all, each, everything you deem 
yourself to possess ; all you have and all you 
are ; give the whole to God, and give it uncon- 
ditionally. Do you remember Mrs. Edward's 
consecration ? She told the Lord her entire 
resignation of her husband to him, and her con- 
tentment that the Lord should save the people 
of Northampton by some other minister if he 
pleased. Do not be discouraged because you 
have tried many times to give yourself thus to 
Christ, and seem not to have succeeded. How 
do you know you have not ? The answer will 
be given to faith. All yoiL have given he has re- 
ceived. Draw near to him and he will draw near 
to you. Do not say, " I cannot." Try. " Then 
shall ye seek me, and find me, when ye search 
for me with all your heart." 

" But I do not find God real," you say. Do you 
own Dr. Spencer's " Pastor's Sketches," First Se- 
ries } If so, read his first sketch, " The Young 
Irishman." It makes this point clear ; viz, that 
we know more of spirit than of matter ; and 
therefore God can become real to us. At the 



36 ONLY liELIEVE. 

beginning of my new life I said, " God is real 
and I am going to realize him. I am not going 
to pray to the walls, to the ceiling. I am not 
going to lose my prayer in any form of words. 
I am going to speak to my living, present, per- 
sonal Lord. I will say just what I mean to this 
realized friend." I did so. I would not tolerate 
a single petition or utterance that did not ex- 
press just what I meant and felt. You need to 
do the same. Do not waste a moment in think- 
ing how you ought to feel, or in struggling after 
any particular state of mind. Express to him 
exactly what you think and feel. But you say, 
" Suppose that my thoughts, wishes or feelings 
are not what they ought to be, not what I de- 
sire them to be." So much the more need of 
your telling Jesus the exact truth, and the whole 
truth. When you go to your physician do }-ou 
tell him how you ought to feel ? 

Here you need the conscious presence of the 
Holy Spirit ;' and for this " Ask and ye shall re- 
ceive." Your Heavenly Father is more willing 
to give this good gift unto you, than you or I to 
give good gifts to the tender children who hang 



MR 



PRAISE. 37 

on us for everything. It is assuredly true. Put 
him to the proof. You can in no way please 
him more. Would you receive the Holy Ghost ? 
Tell him. Do you value the Holy Ghost ? Tell 
him so. 

You fear to apply endearing epithets to Jesus. 
You are surely sensible that Jesus has done 
something for your soul. Can you conceive of 
its being otherwise than agreeable to him that 
you should say, " Dear Jesus, I thank thee" ? 
And when you have said that a few times it 
will sound so pleasantly in your ear, that before 
you are well aware you will find yourself using 
other like terms. Do not let any person or con- 
sideration drive you off from the use of such ex- 
pressions, in the sacred privacy of your own 
closet. Strange, passing strange, that very 
honest people can be hoodwinked into the delu- 
sion, that while the language of truest and ten- 
derest affection may and ought to be lavished 
on earthly friends, propriety and piety alike for- 
bid that He who demands our "whole heart, 
soul, mind, and strength," should be accosted 
with anything more tender and loving than the 



38 oxLV i;i:likvk. 

stilted and frigid language of earthly ceremony. 
My answer to all this is, He is dear Jesus. 

"Jesus I love thy charming name I 

'T is music to my car ; 
Fain would I sound it out so loud 
That earth and heaven might hear." 

A friend writes, " You advised me to use en- 
dearing epithets in my communion with Jesus ; 
and I have, until now I am almost frightened 
lest I love to the extent of forgetting reverence 
and awe. I have been searching the New Tes- 
tament to find a warrant for such intimacy of 
affection, but I do not find it. He seems on the 
contrary to put the people off." 

I do not wonder at this conclusion. When 
one came saying, '*I will follow thee whitherso- 
ever thou goest," his service was declined. 
Doubtless he had not counted the cost. James 
and John were made to understand that their 
case was the same. Peter was confident, but 
self-ignorant. But the Syro-phoenician woman, 
who was sound at the core, was given an oppor- 
tunity to show to all the world that she looked 
beyond his words into the heart of the speaker, 



PRAISE. 39 

and knew how to take her Lord. Jesus would 
encourage only those who would forsake all for 
him ; he wants your full heart's love, and he 
wants it now. And having himself given you 
the undeniable warrant, in Mark 12:2,0, "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and soul, and mind, and strength," there is not a 
shadow of doubt of his offering you the utmost 
possible freedom of loving access to him. John, 
the beloved, adds his plain testimony in his first 
epistle I :3, "And truly our fellowship is with 
the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." 
There can be, I think, no loss of reverence and 
holy awe, in consequence of a greatly growing 
affectionate regard, providing only that we take 
pains to see Jesus, as far as we are capable, in 
the whole range of his attributes ; remembering 
that while he is " the man Christ Jesus," he is 
also "the brightness of the Father's glory, and 
the express image of his person." But there is 
less danger of our being presumptuous here than 
of erring in the opposite direction. Awe is 
much more likely to repress loA'e. You should 
listen to his assurance ; " I am the Rose of Sharon 



40 ONLY liELIEVE. 

and the Lily of the Valleys :" and if you are begin- 
ning to find him whom your soul loveth, you 
should hold him fast and not let him go. He 
may, to try your faith, make as if he would go 
farther, and yet be well pleased to have you con- 
strain him to abide with you. Luke 24 : 28, 29. 
My belief is, that we may have just as much 
love, and as much freedom to love him, as we 
can appreciate. 

But it seems to you that you are so sinful it 
will never do to stop praying for yourself lest you 
should be swept right away from your new-found 
friend. This is pure unbelief ; want of confi- 
dence in our Lord ; and not that alone, but a mis- 
taken idea that you are keeping yourself. " L'n- 
derneath you are the everlasting arms," and 
you need have no fear that Jesus will withdraw 
them. We may always turn from prayer to 
praise securely, knowing, on his own assurance, 
that " whoso offereth praise glorifieth God." Sup- 
pose you have a child so touched with gratitude 
for all your kindness, as to be quite drawn off 
from all thought of its own wants : forgetful even 
for the time being, of how great its ignorance, 



PRAISE. 4 1 

and how many its faults. Could you leave that 
child while thus oblivious, and from such a 
cause, to come to any grief .'' 

And do not fail to give our dear Lord Jesus 
credit for loving tenderness. When you do not 
think of him as pleased with you, it being true that 
you have desired and tried to please him, you 
go about, consciously or unconsciously, slander- 
ing him as a hard master. You are bound to 
think of what is due to him three times for 
every once you pore over your ill-desert. When 
you do this, you will fall to praising, as you 
ought. You magnify your failures out of all 
proportion to their actual importance. This is 
very plausible, but it will not stand the scrutiny 
of a close examination. True humility cannot 
be blind to the number and magnitude of its 
blessings. It will break out in recognizing ac- 
knowledgments ; " Whence is this grace of my 
God to me .'*" " Oh, how canst thou thus over- 
whelm with thy blessings one who is so un- 
worthy ? Dear Lord, my praise is all unworthy 
of thine acceptance ; but, poor as it is, I must 
praise thee, or the very stones will cry out." 



VI r. 

PEACE. 

" When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble ?" 
Job 34 : 29, 

"Just as I am ! Thou will receive ; 
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve ! 
Because thy promise I believe, 

O Lamb of God, I come !'' elliot. 

"Therefore, being justified by faith, we have 
peace with God ;" no more trouble or anxiety 
about ourselves or our condition. 

With regard to this exercise of faith, obser\'e, 
it is not " working yourself up " to believe — 
" working yourself up" to a mysterious and re- 
quired "feeling." It is only an intelligent, ear- 
nest demand of a reasoning, believing soul upon 
itself, to honor God by accepting his word. In 
the case of the friend already supposed who had 
promised on a certain day to do you some great 
favor, would it be fanaticism or any excitement 
of the imagination, while thinking of the fact, 
for you to get the letter, saying within yourself, 



PEACE. 43 

"Let me see; let me read over carefully what 
he did promise" ? And when you had carefully 
re-read the epistle, would you not conclude, 
" Why, yes, he surely does say that, just that, 
and I may rejoice in the certainty; it is all so"? 

You do n't know anything of such a religion 
as this ? Perhaps this is a suggestion of Satan, 
perhaps the natural reasoning of a heart per- 
verted by sin. We do not always rightly ap- 
portion the blame due to Satan and to ourselves. 
But without lessening your culpability, it may 
be right for me to suggest that your feeble piety 
may be referred in part to the atmosphere in 
which you were born and reared. Do you know 
the Memoir of James Brainard Taylor ? Had 
you been a member of his family, or had you 
been one of his Bible-class, it might and proba- 
bly would have made a very great difference. 
In the beginning we are greatly dependent on 
the piety and teachings of others. 

You are not to make the vehemency of an- 
other person's experience a model for yourself, 
nor a standard by which to condemn your own. 
Let us accept the wholesome stimulus which a 



-14 nxLv i;i:lii:vi:. 

seraphic life inspires ; but do nut let us pervert 
it into a discouragement. One is called to a very 
different work from another; and a race-horse 
would not be as useful in the furrows of com- 
mon life as an aaimal of more moderate move- 
ment. 

In the beginning of my religious life it troub- 
led me greatly that I found no glow of love, and 
no depth of sorrow. At last it occurred to me 
to ask, "What is in fact the true test of the real- 
ity of any sentiment ? How much feeling must 
we have in order to be sure that we have the 
right feeling r And the Lord made me see 
that the feeling which secured appropriate action 
was right both in kind and degree. I have often 
illustrated it thus: In my own home there are 
opportunities every day to act the part of a true 
friend ; ten thousand little ways of being swayed 
by love for those around me ; no great thing to 
be done, no demand for vehement emotion ; 
nothing to arrest attention ; only that frequent 
unconscious regulating of words, tones, and 
countenance by a loving regard for the happi- 
ness of others. Now, shall it be alleged in dis- 



PKACi-:. 45 

paragement of my love that it has evinced itself 
in no extraordinary deeds, in no surpassing emo- 
tion ? If I have grieved one of my household, 
how much feeling need I have before I make my 
confession and entreat forgiveness ? Is not that 
a suitable amount which, instantly on my be- 
coming conscious that I have given pain, leads 
me frankly to own my fault and ask forgiveness ? 
And is there one rule for our conduct towards 
one another, and another towards God ? 

Do not weigh and measure your feelings, but 
do simply and ingenuously what seems to you 
right. Often say, " Dear Lord, I am very sinful 
and very ignorant, but I mean to please thee." 
You are beginning to realize, more than ever 
before, how much " all the heart, soul, mind, and 
strength" means ; and seeing how far short you 
have been willing to stop, you are tempted to 
condemn the love you have really borne your 
Lord as naught. Now that is neither wise nor 
true. Moreover, it is ungrateful ; for it refuses 
to recognize what he has actually done for you ; 
and it would stop all praise. He has done great 
things for us, and we must and will praise him. 



46 f)NLV liELIKVi:. 

If you are not careful, Satan will worry you 
into a fever of anxiety also because there is so 
much to be done, so much lost time to be made 
up. Many years ago, when these same anxie- 
ties and desires had laid hold on me, I wrote to 
Dr. Skinner for advice ; and I must hand over 
to you, dear reader, his short prescription : 
" Mem. : Restlessness is not holiness." Quiet 
yourself in the Lord. Often recall to mind that 
the most you have to do is to cast yourself on 
him. He is really to do all. You are to hunger 
and thirst ; and you are blessed in so doing. 
But you are to believe in his love, and to rest in 
his love. The yoke of Christ is easy and his 
burden light, and you have no right to make it 
oppressive even to yourself. Do not despise the 
day of small things, but be willing and thankful 
to increase from very small beginnings. The 
dear Lord will give us time enough to do what 
he has for us to do, and to become what he in- 
tends us to become ; therefore do not allow the 
adversary or your own impatience to goad you 
into a fever. Worry comes of unbelief in Jesus 
and his unceasins: care for us. Remember the 



PEACK. 47 

assurance, " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace 
whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trust*- 
eth in Thee." 

Some one has said that "a good book is not a 
work, but a growth/' The same may be said, 
and truly, of faith. We have something to do 
with it, just as the farmer has to do with pre- 
paring his field. But when he has done all he 
can do, God only can quicken the seed into life. 
The analogy here is, that to the best of your 
ability you separate yourself from all entangle- 
ments. You give your ear and your mind, so 
far as you can, to his word ; but only the Holy 
Ghost can quicken it, so that it shall come to 
you as the very word and love of Jesus, rooting 
itself in your heart and growing vigorously. 

One word about sorrow for the past. How 
much sorrow should we feel t Not so much as 
to carry us to the verge of despondency. Even 
a right exercise of the mind may be turned to 
an evil, by pressing it to an extreme. This is a 
common device of Satan. To look at our sin- 
fulness long enough to despair of salvation by 
works, and to feel the need of Jesus, is well ; one 



4S ONLY liELILVK. 

slight of his forgiving love is worth a thousand 
sights of our sinfulness. After having confessed 
your sins and received forgiveness, you have no 
right to dishonor him by reviving the past, as 
though his blood had not sufficient atoning 
power. 

Nor need you be anxious about the future. It 
is written, ** My God shall supply all your need." 
He will love and keep you to the end. If you 
commit your way to him now, the promise is that 
he will bring it to pass. " What time I am afraid, 
I will trust in thee." What can be better ? If 
your fears come upon you, run to him. He is a 
high rock, a strong tower, a sure defence, a ref- 
uge. It is Satan who drives you first to the past, 
and then to the future. There is no resting- 
place in the one or in the other. But in the 
Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength, present 
strength. Renew your self-consecration to him 
as often as you are disquieted. That is just put- 
ting yourself and your disquiets into his hands ; 
precisely what he invites and commands you to 
do. 



yiii. 

gEEINQ ]£gU3. 

" And their eyes were opened, and they knew him." Luke 
24:31. 

" In darkest shades, if he appear, 
My dawning is begun ; 
lie is my soul's sweet Morning Star, 
And he my rising Sun." 

Last summer I found a dear friend making a 
singular mistake — one that had never occurred 
to me as possible. He thought he must realize 
the person of Jesus as one realizes, for instance, 
George Washington in Stuart's portrait of him. 
You would not, I hope, make that mistake ; but 
it occurs to me to ask. What do you in fact ex- 
pect } Possibly there may be something amiss 
in your expectation which will explain your dis- 
appointment hitherto. The majority are hin- 
dered by indifference ; but when, as we suppose 
to be the fact in your case, dear reader, there is 
no indifference, but an earnest desire to reach 
the truth, there is reason to conjecture the exist- 

OnU- Believe. 7 



50 ONLY liLLIKVE. 

cnce of some misapprehension preventing that 
realization of Jesus which you say you have 
never had. 

There is a fundamental idea in Butler's Anal- 
ogy, which was very serviceable to me; that, 
namely, of its being the mind, not the eye, that 
sees. If you are near-sighted, you use glasses ; 
but the glasses do not see ; and Dr. Butler adds. 
*' no more does the eye see, but the mind looks 
through the eye, and also, and in like manner, 
through the glasses. So again the mind moves 
matter. You push a ball on the floor with your 
hand ; or, taking a cane, you push it with the 
cane. In the one case, as in the other, it is the 
mind that moves matter, and it cannot be shown 
that matter was ever moved but by mind." 

This annunciation was of the utmost worth 
to me, because it set me free from the despotism 
of the senses. It accustomed me to regard un- 
seen powers as just as truly real and efficient as 
things visible, audible, or tangible. Now having 
made this truth your own, you go to vour closet 
to meet Jesus, your true, living, loving Friend, 
whose form you have never seen, and do not 



SEEING JESUS. 5 1 

need to see, because faith in God's testimony, 
and loving trust in God himself, makes him so 
present and real, that form and color could add 
nothing to the reality of his presence. You 
begin to treat him as real. You address him in 
a simple, frank, ingenuous manner. You speak 
in your natural voice and tone, though your rev- 
erence may subdue that tone, your love pervade 
it with tenderness, and a sense of the greatness 
of your privilege make it tremulous with emo- 
tion. With the Christian poet you can say: 

" I cannot feel thee touch my hand 
With pressure light and mild, 
To check me, as my mother did, 
W' hen I was but a child. 

*' But I can feel thee in my thoughts 
Fighting with sin for me ; 
And when my heart loves God, I know 
The sweetness is from thee." 

Now, how shall this Friend, invisible to human 
eyes, impalpable to mortal touch, become real to 
you. I answer, it must be wrought in you by 
faith. Faith is spiritual sight, and will be given 
to him who values and seeks it. The place to 
seek it is in the word of God, for therein Jesus 



52 ONLY VAAAKVE. 

reveals himself; and the medium is the Spirit 
of God, by whom alone " the eyes of our under- 
standing" can be "enlightened," Eph. i : i8, and 
whose office it is to take of the things of Christ 
and show them unto us, John i6 : 15. 

That such a clearness of vision is possible we 
know from Scripture facts. Enoch " walked with 
God ;" Joseph was sustained and comforted in 
all his changeful life, for "the Lord was with 
him;" and Moses "endured as seeing him who 
is invisible." 

And yet seeing is not quite the word to ex- 
press the nearness, the consciousness, the confi- 
dence you desire. You want Jesus to be in 
you — " Christ formed within." You have per- 
haps a friend whom you have never seen, yet to 
whom you have opened your heart, and who has 
thus grown familiar and quite near, despite the 
distance which lies between you. So open your 
heart to Jesus ; trust him wholly, and keep trust- 
ing him. The inevitable consequence will fol- 
low in God's best time, and Jesus will reveal 
himself as "the chief among ten thousand, the 
one altogether lovely." 



IX. 

ABIDINQ IN CHRIST. 

"They shall call his name Emmanuel, Avhich being inter- 
preted is, God with us." Matt, i : 23. 

" I need thy presence every passing hour ; 
What but thy grace can foil the tempter's power ? 
Who like thyself my guide and stay can be ? 
Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide with me !" 

It may be that the Lord is trying the read- 
er's faith. This is his work. Yet, " Wait, I say, 
on the Lord ;" " It is good that a man should 
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of 
the Lord." When it comes it will be fully, glo- 
riously, and wholly of the Lord. In my own 
case, after this crisis, my experience has been 
that of one who " finds Christ so near that he 
can almost be touched." And yet that does not 
express it, because it falls back on sense for an 
illustration. He is nearer than that. John Fos- 
ter, speaking of friends, says : " I will converse 



54 ONLY bLLIEVK. 

with my friends in solitude; then they seem to 
be within my soul ; when I am with them, they 
seem to be without it." 
And Faber, 

"But God is never so far off 
As even to be near ; 
lie is within ; our spirit is 

The home he holds most dear. 

"To think of him as by our side 
Is almost as untrue, 
As to remove his throne beyond 
Those skies of starry blue. 

" So all the while I thought myself 
Homeless, forlorn, and weary. 
Missing my joy — I walked the earth, 
Myself God's sanctuary.'''' 

Our soul is a receiver ; only exhaust or empty 
it, and the Holy Spirit will come in, as the air 
rushes into a vacuum. Our part is just to make 
room for him. Only purely purge his temple, 
and you cannot keep him out. 

You will say, " Ah, that is what I cannot do ; 
I must depend on him to do that." Admit it ; 
but one thing remains for you, namely : to will 
to do it. And then " he that shall come will 



ABIDING IN CHRIST. 55 

come, and will not tarry." A scriptural para- 
dox, yet not unintelligible ; for he who comes in 
the best time cannot be charged with delay. 
Doubtless you will have the sense of nearness 
you crave ; and yet if your heavenly Father 
finds something to be corrected by withholding 
the blessing for a time, shall we prescribe to 
him ? Nay, Lord ; but " be it unto me as thou 
wilt." 

Sometimes it seems within your grasp, and 
again it is far off. You read one day, and find 
only words, words, words. Another day you are 
saying, " Or ever I was aware, my soul made me 
like the chariots of Amminadib." As Fenelon 
testifies : " A line or a word will keep the soul 
agoing a long time." President Edwards bids 
us "watch for the gales of the Spirit." Now this 
is not because God wishes to deal with us in an 
arbitrary way, but because it is to our profit to 
become thoroughly aware of our utter depen- 
dence upon him. 

Do not be discouraged because when you try 
to talk to a real and present Friend you seem to 
talk into the air. This naturally comes of "dead 



56 ONLY BELIEVE. 

orthodoxy," of allowing yourself for many years 
to talk to the ceiling. Can such a habit be bro- 
ken up in a few minutes ? No, nor in many 
years, if it depended on us alone. But our Lord, 
through his Spirit the Comforter, can do what 
we cannot. Let us cultivate a steadfast confi- 
dence in Jesus. Let us make it our aim to know 
Jesus better. Let us ask him to fulfil his prom- 
ise to send the Comforter to guide us into alJ 
truth — truth of feeling, as well as truth of per- 
ception and comprehension. You cannot doubt 
that " He who spared not his own Son," will 
with him also " freely give you all things." 

Again, you must trust Jesus in little things 
if you would feel him to be near. Let me tell 
you a morsel of personal experience. When 
we began housekeeping, to get notice from a 
cook or chambermaid of intention to quit was a 
great source of disquiet. Several times I said, 
" It is vain to expect to get another ser\'ant to 
suit us as well." In time our Lord opened my 
eyes to the impropriety of this. I resolved 
never to say that again, but instead, " Our Lord 
has taken this one away because her mission 



AUIDIXG IN CHRIST. 5/ 

here is finished, and he has a better one in store 
for us." Once or twice he tried us, whether 
under adverse appearances we would hold to 
that. Once he left us alone in the house. But 
we held fast our confidence, and never since 
then, for thirty years or more, has he failed to 
supply all our need. Oh, his love is wonderful ! 
his care-taking endless ! 



X. 

THE NIQHT OF FAITH. 

"At evening time it shall be light." Zech. 14 : 7. 

" Up to the hills I lift my eyes, 
There all my hope is laid ; 
The Lord who built the earth and skies, 
From him will come my aid," 

If I remember rightly it was in Thomas a 
Kempis I first found this expression, "the night 
of faith." I soon came to regard the experience as 
of exceeding worth. May we not discern a fore- 
shadowing of it in Gen. 15:12.^ Then, as now, 
it was a prelude to great blessings. In such 
seasons, dear reader, stay your soul upon Psalms 
112:4: "Unto the upright there ariseth light 
in the darkness." Our blessed Lord is only try- 
ing you, to see if you really care for the great 
boon you are asking. Not that he needs the 
evidence ; but you need it, and principalities and 
powers in heavenly places need it, and are wait- 



THE NIGHT OF FAITI] 



59 



ing to sec him redeem his promise, " Then shall 
ye know him, if ye follow on to know the Lord." 
Be firmly resolved that when he has tried you, 
he shall not find you wanting in trust. Only be- 
lieve; that is all. Trust Jesus. A prolonged, 
painful experience is by no means a denial of 
your request. Every heart-breaking desire of 
yours, " Oh, that I knew where I might find 
him !" is a nearer approach to that emptying of 
your heart for him, which absolutely insures the 
receiving of your desire, and hastens the hour. 
The discipline of mind and heart involved in 
darkness and delay is what we need. We get 
that, and not only that, but we are infallibly di- 
rected. 

How often we are told by hasty and heedless 
speakers, " The way of duty is easily found when 
you have the disposition to walk in it." To such 
I reply, I have not so learned Christ. He has 
nowhere promised that. He has indeed assured 
us of infallible guidance ; but not a word has he 
said of the way being easily found. Sometimes 
it is found only with great painstaking and heart- 
searchings. He " leads the blind by a way they 



CyO ONJ.V liKLlEVE. 

know not." What an opportunity this gives for 
simple faith ! the very grace we most need to 
cultivate. Sometimes we find persons who pro- 
fess to have sought God's guidance, giving up 
their confidence in his guiding hand, because 
they found "hills of diflFiculty" instead of a gar- 
den and bowers of ease. This is surely to be 
faithless. I have found, in my own case, the 
path in which the Lord led me, hills of diflficulty 
and all, to be the right \vay. Ps. 107:7. He 
leads us as it were by a silken thread, ever so 
fine, but strong enough to hold us, provided we 
do not pull from but with him. Obedience is 
better than all the philosophy in the world. 

There is no progress without suffering. Chris- 
tians I think never get beyond their days and 
hours of trial. Many a one is brought to the 
verge of asking the Lord to let him lie down 
and die. Life's work is irksome. They have 
not physical force enough to rough it as is often 
needful. But let such a one think, " I am 
where my Lord wishes me to be. Would I be 
willing to take my education and all my appli-' 
ances out of his hands .-* No ; never, never, 



THE NIGHT OF FAITH. 6 1 

never!" " Behold thy servant, Lord ; be it unto 
me even as thou wilt." ''All the days of my 
appointed time will I wait till my change come !" 

" For flowers need night's cool darkness, 
The moonlight and the dew." 

Sometimes God makes us comprehend that in 
order to be of service to suffering ones, we must 
acquire fellowship with them through compan- 
ionship in trials. Perhaps you, dear reader, may 
find in such a necessity a reason for your not 
immediately obtaining the liberty and joy you 
are longing for. Suppose the Lord should say 
to you, " My child, all that you crave I will most 
assuredly bestow ; but suppose I see it best in 
granting your desire, to place you in the com- 
pany of sufferers, that, like Cowper, you may 
minister to the comfort and spiritual wealth of 
others, while yet wholly unable to taste the con- 
solation." It must have been at sore cost that 
Cowper learned to sing, 

" There is a fountain filled with blood." 



XI. 

gERVlCE. 

"Freely ye have received, freely give." Matt, io: 8. 

"Christian, wouldst thou fruitful be ? 
Jesus says, 'Abide in me.' 
From him all thy fruit is found; 
May it to his praise abound." 

A FRIEND writes : " The Comforter has taught 
me many things ; but I do not see that I have 
learned the one lesson — Jesus." You, dear 
reader, perhaps say the same thing ; that is, you 
feel that your sensibility toward Jesus has not 
become what you desire. Perhaps your soul has 
been more exercised by attempts to get near 
Jesus, than your understanding has been en- 
lightened by an increased knowledge of his ado- 
rable character. Your solicitude to make prog- 
ress has been so deep and constant, that you 
could not forget jiw/;'j-r/y*and the qiicstiofi of prog- 
ress ; but could you have wholly forgotten your 



SERVICE. 6S 

own interest in the matter, and have been ab- 
sorbed in the study of Christ, your love would 
have devoured all your doubts. Introspection 
is doubtless sometimes indispensable ; but too 
much of it is a bar to progress in the knowledge 
and love of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Another great help in acquiring this one pre- 
cious lesson is the communicating, to others as 
fast as we ourselves receive. There is no sub- 
stitute for this, and no dispensing with it if we 
would advance. It is the law of the road on 
which we have resolved to travel. Do not err 
in thinking yourself incompetent to speak for 
Jesus because your knowledge of him has been 
so unsatisfactory to yourself. You may and 
should tell what you know, and should be adven- 
turous in your endeavors to be useful. You 
have the right to put forth exertions, counting 
upon Jesus to give you words and wdsdom. Je- 
sus bade his disciples, " Take nothing for your 
journey, neither staves nor scrip, neither bread, 
neither money." There are many holding back 
from service on the ground that they are not 
furnished for their work ; but how are such to 



64 ONLY BELIEVE. 

come into the highest exercise of liberty, except 
in casting off all other dependence, and launch- 
ing out fearlessly upon the broad sea of Chris- 
tian effort in simple dependence upon Jesus ? 

I am more and more persuaded every day that 
for succeessful work we need nothing, absolutely 
nothing but simple, affectionate faith in our 
blessed Redeemer. I went to church-meeting 
last night feeling that perfect silence would best 
become my circumstances. But when a brother 
read, " If any man will come after me, let him 
deny himself, and take up his cross and follow 
me," such a sense of the sweet privilege of fol- 
lowing Jesus came over me that I could not sit 
still ; I must needs get up and tell them how 
sweet it was to follow always and only Jesus, 
and how rich the reward. 

When you would speak to others, ask the Holy 
One to touch your heart and lips with a coal 
from off his altar, and he will do it. No matter 
whether the result compares with another's ex- 
perience ; you were not made to do another's 
work, but your own. 

When you *' can't do anything," you are re- 



SERVICE. 65 

quired patiently to accept that disability, and be 
content to let some one else do it. " They also 
serve who only stand and wait." We often have 
to avail ourselves of this prescription. But "all 
things," even such as this, " work together for 
good to them that love God." No man's dross, 
we believe, can be purely purged away without 
the refining fire of this particular discipline. I 
know that there is a possibility that some tem- 
peraments, under such teaching, will sink into 
supineness ; but one who is really honest and 
earnest will not. And then a part of our disci- 
pline may also be to keep balancing the ques- 
tion. This, though very uncomfortable, may not 
be unprofitable. Jesus has said, " ]\Iy yoke is 
easy and my burden is light." It is our business 
to find it so ; not to find it so, is to have some- 
where failed of due attention to the rules of his 
service ; and we must go back, searching each 
step of the way, till the wrong step is found. 

Speak of the goodness of the Lord ; let oth- 
ers have the benefit of your experience. God's 
goodness to you, and your recognition of it, is 
as much of a boon to your Christian brother or 

Only Beliere. 9 



66 OXLV IJLLIKVK. 

sister as to yourself. Are we not "joint heirs 
with Christ " ? You surely wish to strengthen 
the faith of all his saints, as well as to convert 
sinners ; therefore speak of what he has done 
and is still doing for you. W'e do not want the 
experience of perfect people. It is the knowl- 
edge of what he has done for imperfect people, 
like ourselves, that touches us most nearly. But 
let the utterance always be preceded by speak- 
ing to the Lord. 

One word more about service. Faith is the 
antidote to a fevered, anxious hurry, even to do 
good. Our dear Lord is most mercifully con- 
siderate of these frames of ours. He knows 
that they are but dust, and we honor him when 
we decline to be hastened beyond our strength. 
We must trust him for all we cannot do, and for 
all that must be omitted because of our inabil- 
ity; and so long as our heart is true to him, he 
will not suffer his work to be retarded, but will 
provide some other way to meet the exigency. 

Work sometimes seems our own, and not the 
Lord's. It lies before me now, work consuming 
time and strength ; hard work, not agreeable, 



«P 



SERVICE. 67 

and so absorbing" as to leave no time, or strength, 
or mental force for that which seems best worth 
the while for an immortal. Then in an instant 
I say, " It is all right, Lord ; I see it all now. 
This is thy way of answering my most earnest 
prayer for holiness in order to usefulness. I 
perceive that in crossing my natural preferen- 
ces, thou art giving me my heart's desire and 
prayer." 

Then again we are perplexed because the 
multiplied labors thrown upon us leave us no 
undisturbed time for prolonged reading and 
prayer. Now, how should we feel towards a 
mother in like circumstances ? " Mother, I de- 
light in doing anything for you ; and whatever 
you bring me I shall do to the best of my abil- 
ity, and I know that in filling my hands with 
work, you leave me less time to' converse with 
you ; but you will not, I know, suspect me of in- 
difference or voluntary absence from you." So 
much confidence have we in a mother ; can we 
not trust Jesus as far } Besides, every word you 
speak for Jesus in an act of co-operation with 
him which you cannot separate from prayer with- 



68 OXLV liKLILVE. 

out a strange perversity of unbelief. Hold your- 
self to the recognition of the fact that Jesus is 
in very deed with you and in you — in all your 
work. And certainly you were never, in the 
secrecy of your chamber, nearer to him than 
when employed in doing his will. 



XII. 

H£tP3. 

"Through thy precepts I get understanding." Ps. 119 : 104. 

" Thy gospel makes the simple wise : 

Thy laws are pure, thy judgments right." 

There is no way by which a Christian will 
grow so fast as in reading the Book of books ; 
not by chapters, but by verses, and parts of 
verses, as the Spirit makes them fresh and 
interesting. I have been living for a year past 
on Colossians 1 19, 10 : "For this cause we also, 
since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray 
for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with 
the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and 
spiritual understanding ; that ye might walk 
worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruit- 
ful in every good work, and increasing in the 
knowledge of God." I have turned this passage 
into a prayer. It was the Comforter who one 



yo ONLY r.KLIKVK 

moriiin;^^, in answer to prayer for a blessing on 
my reading, made these verses spring up in my 
soul like living waters from a deep spring. The 
Comforter will do as much for you, dear reader, 
if asked. 

It will be of infinite benefit to take up the 
leading points of Christian faith, which it may 
never have occurred to you to doubt, and turn to 
the Scripture passages which teach them ; set- 
tling each one upon your own personal investi- 
gation, taking nothing for granted, as is, alas, 
too common. In this way you will come to feel 
the solid rock under you ; the Deity of Christ ; 
the perfect satisfaction made by his atoning sac- 
rifice ; and the forgiveness of sins to all who 
repent, confess and believe ; the indwelling of 
the Comforter ; the efiFicacy of prayer ; the ac- 
ceptability of praise ; the reality and sphere of 
faith ; the absolute surety of your own salvation, 
as a believer ; the constancy and greatness of 
God's love ; the extent and certainty of his prov- 
idence. 

Realize that the Bible is God's living word to 
you. Holy men wrote as they w^ere moved by 



HELPS. 71 

the Holy Ghost, because that is God's way of 
communicating with his creatures. But the 
words recorded are God's words, spoken in the 
first instance to representative men, and intend- 
ed for each and every believer. Listen to his 
voice by the mouth of John the beloved : " That 
which we have seen and heard declare we unto 
you. And these things write we unto you that 
your joy may be full." And John the Baptist 
says, " Behold the Lamb of God." " He is the 
true light which lighteth every man." " As many 
as received him to them gave he power to be- 
come the sons of God." The ability to appreci- 
ate the revelation is God's gift. Take each word 
appropriate to your necessities as actually spo- 
ken by our dear Lord to you, now at this mo- 
ment a present, living utterance, and act upon 
it. 

Not a few Christians make a superstition of 
regular readings of the Bible and prayer ; and 
especially of reading a full chapter or more. I 
have heard Sunday-school teachers proclaim to 
their schools that by reading two or three chap- 
ters a day on week-days and five on Sunday 



/- 



ONLY KKLIKVK. 



they can accomplish the task of reading through 
the Bible in a year. Now this may answer for 
children, and persons unfamiliar with the holy 
Book, in order to get a general knowledge of the 
word ; but Christians do not need to read so. I find 
that I never read the Bible so profitably as when 
some single verse, or two verses, get such hold 
of me that for days, weeks, and sometimes 
months, I cannot consent to give them up. 
Earnest, growing Christians will neither, on the 
one hand, catch at slight excuses for omitting 
regular daily devotions, nor, on the other, make 
a rule so inflexible as to substitute daily read- 
ing and prayer for love and obedience to Christ. 



XIII. 

COMFOF(T OF X.OVE. 

" I will love thee, O Lord, my strength." Psa. i8 : i. 

" I cannot live contented here 

Without some glimpses of thy face ; 
And heaven, without thy presence there. 
Would be a dark and tiresome place." 

The history of one sometimes helps another. 
Two years ago, H was, though a church- 
member, as nearly as possible a total skeptic. 
When reminded of the necessity of loving Jesus 
as she loved her mother, her reply was, " That is 
impossible, for I have been accustomed to go to 
my mother, all my life, with everything, and have 
been counselled and comforted by her times in- 
numerable ; of course I cannot love Jesus as I 
love my mother !" She w^as told that as long as 
she put Jesus at that disadvantage, it would con- 
tinue impossible ; but how w^ould it be if she 

were to give Jesus his own place — the place he 
10 



71 OM.V liKLIKVE. 

claims — and j^o always first to him with every- 
thing ? Would he not then prove himself to be 
as kind, ay, and an infinitely more tender, as well 
as w^iser Friend ? Now she has found it so. 
Now she is so absorbed with Jesus that she 
"forgets herself totally, sins and all." 

Must you wait until you reach " love's own 
country" before you can drink such refreshing 
draughts from the deep, sweet well ? No, in- 
deed ! for our Emmanuel says, " Ho, every one 
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ; and he 
that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat ; yea, 
come, buy wdne and milk without money and 
without price." When President Edwards was 
exercised with a longing to be filled with Jesus, 
he resolved to do all in his power to encourage, 
increase, and intensify the longing. This is just 
what our Lord would have you do. Jesus is the 
one altogether lovely. The more you cherish 
him the more you will find him so. There is no 
holding back on his part, but your eyes are in 
part holden. You do but see men as trees 
walking. This very moment you may un- 
checked lay your head upon his bosom, and 



COMFORT OF LOVE. 75 

there rest for ever. It is what he would have 
you do. Long delay to do it has infused dis- 
trust, has made you timid, has led you to rea- 
son, ** If I were only thus and so ; if I had only 
done this or that, then might I cast myself on 
him, and take my fill of love divine." The mo- 
ment will come when you will let go the last 
doubt, and rest on him. You will be borne 
along through "love's own country" in the bo- 
som of the Lord of the country, with fulness of 
joy, as on the wings of the wind. 

Will Jesus ever be tired of you } What, he 
who has said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength " ? 
Would you be tired of one who in like manner 
was seeking to deserve your love ? 

" Why can you not revel in the ocean of his 
love .^" do you ask ? For the same reason that 
some persons cannot swim ; they are afraid to 
trust the element that would buoy them. Only 
believe his assertion, " Underneath are the ever- 
lasting arms," and nothing can prevent your re- 
joicing in the ocean of his love. Were you ever 
so advanced a Christian, so long as you remain 



7^; {>Sl.Y IJKLIKVK. 

in the body, your hunger and thirst must needs 
at once attest your sonship, and that absence 
from the Lord which constrained Paul to say 
that " to depart and be with Christ is far bet- 
ter." 

Follow your . impulses to believe wholly. 
There is no danger that you will believe too 
much or expect too much. Believing is lov- 
ing. Every hour you struggle on, faint yet pur- 
suing, hungering for Jesus, yet not rebelling 
or murmuring because he keeps you waiting, 
you give him a treasure of loyal love, far, far 
beyond the offerings of one who has no such 
aching, insatiable void. " How precious are thy 
thoughts unto me, O God 1" thoughts of thine 
absolutely perfect knowledge, Psa. 139:1; that 
thou knowest my very thoughts, ver. 2 ; thoughts 
of thy nearness, ver. 3 ; and protection, descend- 
ing to the smallest details, ver. 4 ; and steadying 
me with thy hand, ver. 5 ; filling me with inef- 
fable peace in the joyful assurance of thy pres- 
ence, ver. 6-12 ; thoughts of thy foresight and 
painstaking, ver. 13-19; and thy generous in- 
tentions in my behalf, sure deliverance from the 



COMFORT or LOVE. 77 

wicked, and the still more momentous deliver- 
ance from every way not agreeable to thy pure 
will. 

"'Tis not the skill of human art 

Which gives me power my God to know ; 
The sacred lessons of the heart 
Come not from instruments below. 

'* Love is my teacher. He can tell 

The wonders that he learned above ; 
No other master knows so well ; 
'Tis Love alone can tell of love." 



XIV. 

QROWTH. 

" First the blade, then the ear, after that the full com in the 
ear." Mark 4 : 28. 

"lie sendeth sun, he sendeth shower; 
Alike they 're needful for the flower ; 
And joys and tears alike are sent 
To give the soul fit nourishment." 

If some fond mother should bring you her 
daughter, a promising child of ten years, and say 
to you, " I want you should take my child and fit 
her for the highest and most useful sphere in 
life, in a week, or month, or year," )'ou would be 
compelled to reply : " You know not what you 
ask. It is a thing impossible in the nature of 
the case. Your child's mind requires time as 
well as books. My business is simply to lead 
the way, assisting in the development of the 
powers which God has given her. You may 
count on my letting none of these suffer from 



ciRownr. 79 

neglect. Whatever talent reveals itself shall 
receive judicious encouragement." 

So you may count with absolute confidence 
on our Lord's tender interest in you and care 
for you, and that he will put you forward as fast 
as you have strength to go. Nor is his attention 
to your needs, nor your progress under his tui- 
tion, to be measured by any particular sensation, 
or by complacency in any visible improvement 
you may seem to discover in yourself. Not but 
that you may discover in yourself such improve- 
ment as may justly impel you to give thanks to 
God. But after all, your hope and encourage- 
ment must be his promise, and that his Spirit 
makes this real to you. Here is the solid ground, 
the rock, standing on which you can neither be 
unduly exalted by sensible fervors, nor depressed 
by any diminution of emotional sensibility. Grad- 
ually the conviction will gain upon you that Je- 
sus is unchangeably your friend, quite irrespec- 
tive of your ebb and flow of feeling, of the ups 
and downs of your 'spiritual life. 

In judging of your standing or progress, two 
things are probable : first, that you do not make 



So oxLv in:Lii:vE. 

sufficient allowance for physical influences ; and 
secondly, that you do not rest in Jesus. You 
think you would rest if you could only feel thus 
and so. But he requires you to rest uncondi- 
tionally in him. This misapprehension about 
feeling is almost universal. There is a precon- 
ceived idea of a successful act of faith, involving 
peculiar if not overwhelming emotion, and a per- 
suasion that if this be not realized, nothing is 
accomplished. Xow the truth of the matter is, 
men catch sight of Jesus from ever^' possible 
angle of vision, according to the endless varie- 
ties of need; seeing him as just the Saviour 
needed for their own particular exigency; and 
the kinds and degrees of emotion are as various 
as the peculiarities of circumstances. 

There is a precious lesson for you in Col. 
2: lo: ''And ye are complete in him." Each 
Christian is a temple of the Holy Ghost, not 
yet finished, but being advanced day by day by 

Him who formed him for Himself. On B 

street a new church is being built on land re- 
claimed from the river. Nearly a year ago they 
were driving piles whereon to lay the founda- 



GROWTH. 8 1 

tion. When we went away, two months ago, I 
said to myself, "We shall see great progress 
when we return." But when I went to view it, 
they had not reached even the top of the doors. 
Shapeless blocks and bits of stone were lying 
around, and the workmen were not idle ; but the 
work is large, and to be built for long continu- 
ance. Meanwhile this slowly-advancing edifice 
is all complete in the mind of the architect. It 
is completely illustrated in his drawings, some of 
which I have seen. If the workmen live ; if dis- 
asters do not overtake them ; if the blessing of 
God shall favor, by-and-by the building will be 
complete to the eye of e\ery beholder. About 
yourself there is no if but one: "You shall 
know, if you follow on to know the Lord," for 
his own mouth hath spoken it. 

At present you are enduring the trial of hope 
deferred. You desire the immediate realization 
of Jesus' love for you. So far as your inability 
to do this is the effect of sin, your disappoint- 
ment will intensify your abhorrence of sin. And 
is not that a great gain .'* Does any one love 
God and holiness, who does not equally hate sin 

Only Bt;lii'vc. 11 



S2 ONLY UELILVE. 

and Satan ? W'c are not apt to think of this ; 
but we must hate sin as God hates it ; and we 
cannot do this except as we learn its hatefulness 
from its disastrous influence on our usefulness 
and happiness. What you want is, that our 
Lord should educate you for the everlasting en- 
joyment of his friendship and service. That he 
is doing. He says so. "You are no more stran- 
gers and foreigners, but .... built on the foun- 
dation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
himself being the chief corner-stone. In whom 
all the building fitly framed together groweth 
unto a holy temple in the Lord ; in whom ye 
also are builded together for a habitation of 
God through the Spirit." For what has Jesus 
reconciled you to God ? " To present you holy, 
unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight." 
It is a progressive work. Some few Christians 
seem to be brought, by the grace of God, to a 
point from which it is but one step to a fulness 
of joy and peace in believing. They see the 
step and take it ; others protest they cannot see 
it. But the Lord is dealing with you in his own 
way. and you may trust him. 



XV. 

3EN31BLE FERVORg. 

" The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of 
water sprinking up into everlasting life." John 4 : 14. 

" Oh, may my love to thee 
Pure, warm, and changeless be, 
A living fire." 

There are few things in the rehgious hfe so 
misleading as sensible fervors. I have many a 
time been completely extinguished by the aston- 
ishing fervors of persons, whom I found on ac- 
quaintance to be neither truthful nor honest. 
Others I have seen whose fervor soon burned 
out, and the persons subsided into a state of 
living which compelled serious doubt whether 
they ever had any fire of true devotion. Mean- 
while my own love, which in comparison had 
seemed to be nothing, consciously suffered no 
abatement, but had gone on increasing, through 
summer's heat and winter's cold, quite inde- 
pendent of others. 



^4 C)NLv j:i:i.ikvi:. 

Our need is of fresh supplies continually of 
divine truth and love. The feeling that we must 
and ought to be effectually ''stirred" by what 
we hear sometimes steels us against all right 
feeling. To sit meekly at the feet of Jesus, and 
learn patiently of him, and of him alone, is one 
of the least common attainments. I do not 
mean to imply that we may not learn from our 
fellow-Christians. But I think there is a temp- 
tation, not uncommon, to expect church-mem- 
bers to get stirred up under fervid appeals from 
one another. This is not saying anything 
against the use of a genuine power to arouse 
and benefit others ; but the eloquence of truth, 
God's truth, dropping quietly into a mind always 
offered to the occupancy of the Comforter, oh, 
how superior is this! And how much more 
enduring the inspirations thus received than 
those heats which alternate with frequent and 
most reprehensible irregularities, even to sus- 
pension of spiritual life. 

Conscientious individuals often deceive or 
misunderstand themselves. They say, " If I 
could only say truly that I entered into this 



SKXSIliLK FF.RVORS. 85 

matter with all my soul, I should be content." 
What do you mean by " all your soul " ? You 
are " not vehemently excited." Neither are you 
about your mother or your child, your husband 
or your wife. Yet you doubtless love these with 
all your heart. Vehement excitement is not 
necessarily the only type of an all-the-soul in- 
terest. Your love to earthly friends is to be 
measured by your steady, continuous endeavors 
to promote their interests, or to forward their 
usefulness, with that measure of feeling appro- 
priate to each day's demand. And if you can 
sincerely say that it is the desire of your heart 
to be emptied of self and conformed to the will 
of God, do you not come up to that test in your 
relations to him ? 

Do not misjudge yourself either because you 
have days when prayer seems utterly unsatisfac- 
tory. Such days are a trial of your faith, and 
every Christian probably knows something of 
such an experience. Do not be appalled by it. 
It may be an intellectual obscuration, often oc- 
casioned by our physical condition. If one de- 
pends on frames and feelings, such a condition 



«S6 ox I A' liKLIKVi:. 

brings dismay. On the other hand, if one has 
learned to look up and say, " Lord Jesus, I am 
thine in sunshine or in shadow, with comfort or 
without, I shall go steadily on, doing what I 
think to be acceptable to thee;" then faith 
grows, even as the grass in the night. The 
time will come, too, when you will thank Jesus 
for just this trial. You need not, unless you 
consciously have occasion, refer it to ill health ; 
nor need you conclude that by it you have lost 
ground. If you cannot trace it to some known 
sin, refer it in a childlike spirit to God's good- 
will, and find in it the evidence that he has 
set his heart on your sanctification. Were you 
always to have the fervor and fluency you some- 
times have, you might mistake what in a thou- 
sand instances comes of mere animal spirits, for 
pure spiritual life. At such seasons of privation 
one gets excellent opportunities for faithful and 
sensible self-examination. Thus we inquire, 
" Do I wish to turn to any other than Jesus for 
life, light, or joy ? Am I any less bent on serv- 
ing my Lord ? Can I not truly and with em- 
phasis say, ' Whom have I in heaven but thee ? 



SENSIBLE FERVORS. 8/ 

and there is none upon earth I desire beside 
thee'? Am I not more ready than ever to ex- 
claim, ' If I forget thee, let my right hand forget 
her cunning ; let my tongue cleave to the roof 
of my mouth, if I prefer not thee above my chief 
joy'?" 

Even if we do make a little slip, or find a duty 
omitted here or there, it does not follow that we 
have lost ground to that extent that we need be 
discouraged in our attempts at recovering it. 
What one is apt to lose in such circumstances 
is self-complacency. It is vexing, just when we 
are ready to think we are becoming pretty good, 
to be reminded that all the apparent improve- 
ment has oozed out through a flaw in the vessel. 
Now the real improvement is seen in the resolve 
we immediately adopt, " Well, if I never suc- 
ceed, I will keep on trying till the end of time." 
" By patient continuance in well-doing," not by 
sensible fervors, we shall " inherit glory, honor, 
and immortality." 



xvr. 

LIBERTY. 

"For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty." Gal. 5 : 13, 

" Rest in the Lord, sweet, silent rest, 
At last my soul hath found ; 
Rest from myself : in him so blest, 
I sink in peace profound. 
Rest from the ceaseless surge of guilt : 

' No condemnation ' here ! 

Sufficient is the blood he spilt. 

His love forbids my fear." 

The controlling desire and endeavor in all 
things to please Jesus should cover the whole 
ground of solicitude with the Christian. Espe- 
cially if with this he connects the great princi- 
ple of justification by faith alone, without the 
deeds of the law. If I love a friend truly, I 
shall certainly do all the deeds, and say all the 
words, which would be demanded by perfect 
obedience to the highest and strictest law. But 
what would satisfy him, would not be the com- 
pliance with the law, but the love. So keep in 



LIBERTY. S9 

mind that you are justified by faith alone, and 
that your works are of no value except as they 
are the consistent and inseparable accompani- 
ment of your loving confidence — that is, your 
faith — and all will be well. 

But here is a point of danger, lest you tend 
towards such a critical surveying, weighing and 
measuring everything you do, say, or think, as 
to lose all freedom. Do you need an illustra- 
tion .'' Suppose that in the society of a very 
dear friend, I should be so anxious to please, as 
never to have a particle of mental rest or peace. 
Would that be well or wise ? Bear in mind the 
verse, "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, 
then have we confidence toward God." I am a 
friend of yours. I come to your house with all 
the laws of polite intercourse laid down in my 
mind. "Thou shalt do this;" *'Thou shalt not 
do that." I might keep to all these rules and 
have a weary time of it. As George Herbert 
tersely says, 

" How wide is all tliis long pretence ! 

There is in love a sweetness ready penned ; 
Copy out that, and save expense." 
12 



90 ONLY BELIEVE. 

If I love you in my heart I may or may not 
keep fully up to the rules ; love will set me at 
ease. My heart will assure me of my loyalty to 
you, and I have confidence in your love for me. 
So if our Lord finds a loving heart in you, he 
will not condemn you. If he finds in you a 
legal spirit, relying or trying to rely on your 
obedience to rules, without love in your heart, 
he will find you wanting. 



XYII. 

PERPLEXITIES. 

• " My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is 
from him." Ps. 62 : 5. 

" O foolish man ! where are thine eyes ? 

How hast thou lost them in a crowd of cares !" 

God hears our prayers for sanctification by 
sending trials. Is not this the history of the 
saints from long before the time of John New- 
ton ? And in daring to " seek first the kingdom 
of God and his righteousness," we lay our dear- 
est friends under the same liability to discipline 
to which our prayer and endeavor expose us. 
Not but that the Divine wisdom finds a needs- 
be for them too, in it all, as truly as though they 
or we were alone the objects of God's care. 
Hardly anything brings a more affecting illus- 
tration of the wonderful extent of the Lord's re- 
sources than this, that he can carry on the edu- 



92 ONLY BELIEVE. 

cation of two or of twenty souls as easily as 
that of one ; and moreover, that he can and does 
provide that the discipline which primarily is for 
one, is equally in place for the other ; and still 
again, that the suffering of one, sympathized in 
and shared by the other, shall be the precise 
thing most needful and useful for both.j 

We are sometimes thrown into circumstances 
where we have to choose our way. We seek the 
Divine guidance. But we say to ourselves, 
" What if, through failure to seek earnestly or 
importunately enough, we are left to make a 
mistake!" Anxious importunity has its place 
in the transition state between unbelief in the 
Divine guidance, and a simple, affectionate 
trust. But to those of you who have lon<r 
known the Comforter, and are assured that he 
dwells with you and in you, and that he con- 
stantly guides you, how proper is that serene 
trust which rejoices in the promise that he 
" abideth faithful," that he " will never leave nor 
forsake you." In that profound, undisturbed 
conviction we may rest. A friend long tried 
would rightly feel grieved if we should WTite in a 



PERPLEXITIES. 93 

flutter of doubt and anxious concern, lest a slip 
of our pen, or an unguarded utterance should 
alienate his regard, and provoke him to leave us 
unaided in a time of perplexity and trial. We 
would not so distrust a companion. And is it 
not plain that we ought not to conceive of the 
possibility that Jesus would leave us, his dis- 
ciples, his friends, to err, for the lack of greater 
earnestness or importunity, when he knovrs our 
sincere and fervent desire .' Does not quiet 
confidence, and soul-refreshing rest in his prom- 
ises of guidance, and in his love, honor him ? as 
well as contribute greatly to our own happiness, 
and so to our power to help others to a like 
precious faith ? 

In making such a choice there must be a lim- 
it to our questioning ; some point at which, in 
a case calling for a decision, we must come to 
a decision. In our courts of law there could 
never be an adjudication, if a point were not 
reached at which it should be ruled that "the 
evidence is all in." \\'hen that point is reached, 
the advocate is permitted to make the best 
showing he can. on the one side or the other. 



94 ONLY BELIE VK. 

and the juiy <^Wc their conclusion on the evi- 
dence. We have to go over just this ground 
often ; and be it that we have to be judged in our 
own case, and that human judges are liable to err, 
if we go into the examination with carefulness, 
prayerfulness and painstaking to get at the truth, 
we are bound to accept the result as the decision 
of our Lord. And as God himself is settled and 
serene in his conclusions, he doubtless desires, 
and has provided, that we, in our measure, shall 
be in ours. We are not warranted to assume 
that Jesus never suffers his disciples to err in 
judgment ; for our errors in judgment often fur- 
nish avenues for the admission of most valuable 
lessons ; lessons which rarely come home to us by 
any other way. 

Just in proportion as we are conscious of a 
controlling desire to do as we think Jesus would 
be best pleased to have us do, in that proportion 
are we bound to believe that he is pleased with 
us. To indulge any other belief is, in effect, to 
make void his assurance that his yoke is easy 
and his burden light. For if the sincerely desi- 
rous to do right cannot know what He esteems 



PERPLEX ITIES. 95 

right, then miserable suspense and self-condem- 
nation are inevitable Questionings at such 
time may arise from unbelief, veiled in the 
plausible garb of a deep sense of our own falli- 
bility. True, we are fallible, prone to err ; but 
is the promise of God of no effect ? And for 
whom is the promise ? Is it for those who have 
least need of it ? or, also, for those who need it 
most ? When God presents the two sides of a 
question so nearly balanced that we cannot dis- 
cern which indicates the path of duty, the pomt 
at which he aims is less the issue of the ques- 
tion than the process. The desire of our heart, 
evident to him, and the pains we take to please 
him by our decision, are the things of value in 
his esteem. The even balancing of the question 
forces on us a closeness and a frequency of ap- 
peal to our Lord, most evidently suited to make 
him real to us. 

We have no right to think it a proof of sin that 
we are "tossed about," so long as the tossing is 
the result of rowing against wind and tide, by 
God's appointment and direction. The "wa- 
vering" we are warned against is of quite an- 



9^ ONLY IJKl.IKVE. 

Other sort ; namely, that of a man who has no 
such faith as impels him to struggle in defiance 
of winds and waves. It is not well to be anx- 
ious about remote results. Our true solicitude 
should be, to act as well as we can, with the light 
we have to-day, this hour, iioiu. Jesus has said, 
"As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved 
you." We must believe that, just because Jesus 
said it ; and believing it, we may well rest, firm 
as the everlasting hills, upon his love, assured 
that if anywhere among the inexhaustible treas- 
ures of our Lord there is a single thing better 
for us than those which try us most, we shall 
have it. 

The cry, ' Why am I thus T sooner or 4ater 
comes up out of the suffering experience of 
every child of God. With inter\-als, long or 
short, of peace and quietness. Christians have 
extreme perplexities, with the consciousness of 
being at their wits' end, and void of wisdom to 
meet a pressing emergency. But such seasons 
of bewilderment and tempest come and go, and 
leave the sufferer unscathed. Though while 
they are pending they seem fateful as destiny, 



PKKPLKXITIES. 97 

in the hands of our Lord they prove only bless- 
ings. How this may be we can easily believe. 
First, he desires to bring us into the most per- 
fect sympathy and oneness with him. Second, 
this consists in a profound deference to the 
Father's will, and in great tenderness towards 
the burden-bearing and suffering. Third, he 
would bring us into the exercise of a faith that 
nothing can disturb. To know whether a tree 
or a Christian's faith can be uprooted or blown 
down, it is needful that it should be blown upon 
most furiously by every wind of heaven. If it 
stands bravely through it all, we have an evident 
and most encouraging result not to be reached 
in any other way. There is need of all this dis- 
cipline of perplexity, because the transforming 
of such creatures as we are into the image of 
Jesus, is such a great work. If we take this 
view of it, we shall account every new perplex- 
ity new evidence that our beloved Lord is using 
the attrition of trial to make us more like him- 
self. 



13 



XVIII. 

VICTORY. 

"This is the victory that overcomcth the world, even oar 
faith.'"' I John 5:4. 

" If man be nothing, God is all ; 
Love sets the captive free 
From every burden, bondage, thrall ; 
Of dungeons dark, the key." 

It may be that some one of our Lord's little 
ones having read these few simple pages of tes- 
timony and counsel, will be led to ask, " Do any 
attain to this high and blessed experience of 
love, joy, and peace in believing in Jesus ?" 
Thanks be to God, many have reached it. Here 
is the record of one. Not long before she was 
called to her heavenly home, she wrote the fol- 
lowing letter to a timid believer: 

TRUSTING ALL TO CHRIST. 
My Dear Friend : For many weeks I have 
been waiting to feel strong enough to write to 
you. I have thought a great deal of you and 



VICTORY. 99 

very tenderly, and have been longing to be per- 
mitted to lead you into the quiet rest which the 
Lord has given to me. 

Now don't be surprised to hear me say this, 
and begin at once to say that I have received 
some new light, or come into some marvellous 
experience. Not a bit of it ; but I think I do 
know more of what trusting in God means than 
T used to. When my kind doctor first told me 
that I had a fatal disease upon me, and that I 
must at once drop everything, and care first of 
all for my health, in that same hour I believe I 
did " drop everything," spiritual burdens as well 
as temporal. I had been tugging away at myself 
for months and years, trying to grow better; 
trying, I rather think, to- make myself of some 
account in God's sight. I was always looking 
forward to the time when I should be more pray- 
erful, more diligent, more consecrated, and then 
God would be pleased with me, and I would 
know I was his child. There it was, you see, 
j ust nothing but self -righteousness after all. But 
my doctor's words made me feel that I carried 
about a disease that might at any moment end 



100 ONLY BELIEVE, 

my earthly existence. In one little hour I was 
brought face to face with the fact that my do- 
ing, of whatever sort, was nearly ended ; and 
that I might have no more time in which to fin- 
ish my work in this world, or to get ready for 
another. 

I w'as not alarmed or troubled, though greatly 
surprised. But my first thought w^as, "Well, I 
am in the Lord's hands, and I know it now." 
And my next, the prayer, " Lord, take me ; I 
give myself to thee just as I am. I can do noth- 
ing more to make myself better, I can never be 
more fit to come to thee than in this moment." 
And I think the Lord must have heard that 
jDrayer. No rustle of angelic wings stirred the 
air. No visible revelation appeared to me. No 
deep joy flowing into my soul made me feel that 
my prayer was accepted, and that I was just 
taken up into the Good Shepherd's arms. But 
very quietly and calmly, without a wish to have 
anything different, I sat that long Sabbath after- 
noon, and talked with a dear friend of the mes- 
sage the Lord had sent me. 

How strange it all was I In the morning, not 



VICTORY. lOI 

feeling strong", to be sure, but with no suspiciou 
that anything ailed me beyond a temporary weak- 
ness ; in the afternoon, sitting already by the 
bank of the river that separates us from our 
heavenly home. Well, the quiet calmness that 
came to me in that hour, my Lord's own gift to 
me, has never left me. " It is the Lord's doing, 
and it is marvellous in our eyes." I have no 
fears for the future, so far as my sickness is 
concerned ; nor any wish that I know of, as to 
the length of my stay here. This, you know, 
cannot be any human experience ; for I have 
much to make life pleasant to me. Nor have I 
a longing desire to depart. All that I put into 
the Lord's hands once for all. And he has given 
me grace to leave it there. Jesus is not more 
real to me, perhaps, than he was before. I do n't 
know that I love him better, or am nearer to 
him. I should be glad to do so ; but I do n't 
fight any longer because I can't do this. I find 
I can trust, if things are not as I think they 
ought to be, or as I wish they were. And I 
think this trust is what God wants of me more 
than anything else. So I have stopped trying 



102 ONLY BELIEVE. 

to earn God's favor, and have left myself in his 
hands to be saved like any other poor sinner. 
And all I have to do is just to take the blessings 
lie sends me day by day — and they are innumer- 
able — and enjoy them as his gifts, and wait 
quietly till he takes me out of this lower school, 
and puts me into a higher class in the heavenly 
home, where I shall learn to love him as I ought. 
I have written this, because it seems to me as 
though it might help you a little. Friends have 
told you, I suppose, a hundred times just to 
give up all your own efforts and trust in Christ, 
whether you felt or saw anything or not. I can 
only repeat the same lesson. You will never be 
any more fit to trust than you are to-day. Sup- 
pose you knew your life would end this week, 
would not your instinctive feeling be, " I can only 
trust in the Lord " ? Well, if you can only rest 
on him in like manner ;i07u, he will in time make 
known to you that you are his. Do you suppose 
any enemy of God was ever distressed as you 
are because God was not more real ? Never ! I 
wish I could tell you some of the sweet thoughts 
I have had about Jesus visiting the sick when he 



vicroRV. 103 

was upon earth. Have you noticed how much 
the gospels say about it ? And I have thought, 
if he came to me and healed me, I should want 
to take him right to your room, and ask him to 
heal you. Some day he will. 

They tell me that I am an entirely different 
person since my illness ; and I think it is true. 
It is the Lord's doing, h^arthly cares laid aside 
in a great measure, spiritual burdens dropped at 
his feet, who bid us " let not your heart be troub- 
led," I have been quietly waiting through sun- 
shine and shadow for the coming of his messen- 
ger. 

I have enjoyed much this winter, though I 
have no wonderful experiences, no ecstasies, no 
new views of Christ and his love. I love to live. 
And God has lavished such countless blessings 
of every description upon me in these months 
of my decline, that it has been a perpetual joy 
to recount them to myself and to those about 
me. The future seems so full of awe and mys- 
tery as to bewilder me ; so I do not think much 
about it, but go trusting along from day to day 
with a glad heart, knowing that my God will not 



104 OXLV BELIEVE. 

fail me when the time of trial comes. I have 
not attained what I have stru,j:([;led for so many 
years ; but I am one of the Lord's little ones, I 
hope. And he keeps me. oh, so quiet ! It some- 
times almost seems to me as if I had begun to 
live in a little piece of heaven already. 

E. T. G. 



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